


four

by ganymede_elegy



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, F/M, Jon Snow and the Starks Are Not Related, You're Welcome, and fluff?, i could have named this four christmases and a funeral but i didn't, i don't really understand what fluff is or how to write it, love and loss and grief and hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28098786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ganymede_elegy/pseuds/ganymede_elegy
Summary: She had never putJonandChristmastogether, but now she thinks she'll never be able to separate them.or, four Christmases, three midnight excursions, two angry siblings, and one boy at the center of it all
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 72
Kudos: 242





	four

_one_

She doesn't remember her first Christmas with Jon, but she's sure she'll remember this one.

He'd slipped into their lives so seamlessly, she hadn't even really taken notice the first few years. He was just a boy, just Robb's friend, just one more person playing hockey and video games and whacking each other with sticks out in the back yard; just another Robb or Arya or Theon.

If she thinks hard enough, the first Christmas memory she can specifically place him in is when they built a snow castle in the front yard and she remembers Jon uncovering a fallen tree branch under a bank of snow and sticking it in the middle of the castle and mom had let them have some old ornaments and they'd hung them on the little prongs of the branch and they'd laughed over how sad it looked. She thinks that memory is very clear, Jon standing proudly after he'd pushed the branch upright into the snow in their castle. All the others, all the Christmases before and after, he's a hazy ghost at best. Always in the periphery, hovering about the edges of her life.

Even in the last few years when he'd been at their house more and more often, staying the night or even days at a time, it hadn't been for Christmas (and even if it had been, she's not sure she would have paid attention because he confused her, this boy with his sudden tempers and the way he would disappear into the woods for hours on end and his sullenness. Back then, she didn't understand why her parents would tell them all to leave him alone when he got angry or why she wasn't allowed to have _her_ friends stay over as much as Jon did and that never seemed fair).

She had never put _Jon_ and _Christmas_ together, but now she thinks she'll never be able to separate them.

Because it's all wrong – how they'd taken down the Christmas tree and all the decorations and instead put up long trestle tables covered in mom's fanciest tablecloths with finger sandwiches and a fruit bowl and drinks. Instead of colorful lights and the smell of pine candles, there's a bunch of mostly-strangers in all black standing around their living room and talking in hushed tones. Instead of her comfortable Christmas sweaters, she's in an itchy black wool dress that barely fits anymore and thick black tights and black flats and instead of Christmas cheer, everyone is just _sad_.

She tries not to look at Jon too much, forced to stand in the center of the room and shake hands with all these adults she's sure he doesn't actually know. His mom's coworkers and friends, she can hear them telling Jon stories of his mom and they all laugh at their own memories but she thinks Jon looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. There are other kids from school and their parents, and people from the church where they'd had the service (though she doesn't think Jon or his mom even _went_ to church and she's sure these people are just here for the free food).

She doesn't know what to do because it _should_ be Christmas but it's all _wrong_ and she's sad for no reason at all. She thinks she only met Jon's mom once and she _thinks_ Ms. Snow was nice, but she barely remembers and what right does she have to be sad? But she is, and she wonders if she's sad more for the loss of Christmas than for Jon's mom and she wonders if she really _is_ that selfish. Arya calls her selfish sometimes and maybe it's true. Maybe she really is sad that mom offered to have the wake here at the Stark house because the Snow's house is too small and she thinks she heard her mom mention the medical bed still set up in the living room there.

When a man comes in, tall and handsome with hair so blonde it's nearly silver-white, she watches Jon run out the back door and into the woods and she finds out later the man is his dad and he wasn't supposed to come to the funeral but he did anyway.

He's taking Jon south, to Dorne, and this makes everything worse.

Even after the funeral, after the wake, after the trestle tables have come down and the decorations have gone back up, it's all still _wrong_ because Robb and Arya are angry and always yelling and Bran is more quiet than usual and little Rickon doesn't understand what's happening and cries all the time.

“Why can't he stay _here_?” Robb shouts on Christmas Eve as mom pulls a tray of cookies out of the oven.

“He belongs with his father,” mom says calmly and Sansa wants to run away but she agreed to help mom bake and so she stays.

Robb yells and screams and Arya joins in and they call mom all sorts of names that Sansa doesn't think is fair, really. Mom is right, Jon should be with his father, even if his father hasn't been around for most of his life. It gets to the point where dad hears all the way from his study and comes in and tells Robb and Arya to go to their rooms and Sansa doesn't think she's ever seen dad this angry and when she starts crying into the snickerdoodle dough, she doesn't know why.

It wasn't _her_ mom that died and it's not _her_ best friend that's moving away and it's not _her_ getting in a fight with her parents and she has no _reason_ to cry but she does it anyway and she keeps crying until mom sighs and tells her to go to her room, too, until she calms down.

Robb doesn't come downstairs the next morning and they unwrap their presents in silence and after, mom takes his presents up and leaves them in front of his door. Hours later, she hears a noise and when she peeks out of her door, she finds the game console he'd been begging for smashed against the wall in front of mom and dad's room.

* * *

_two_

He comes back for Christmas break three years later and when she hears about it, she feels nothing but dread, remembering what happened the year he left.

It's not that she doesn't _want_ Robb to have his best friend back, but it took them so long to get back to normal after Jon left and she doesn't want to go through that again.

She's a little surprised that Jon's dad is ok with putting him on a plane when he's only seventeen and flying him from one end of Westeros to the other. But then again, maybe she shouldn't be surprised, she's heard Robb and Arya say things about Jon's dad that aren't so nice and even mom and dad get weird when they mention him.

Dad drives Robb to the airport to pick Jon up and she's relieved when they get back and Robb is happy. Even Jon is happy, its different than how he had been in the months (and years, really) prior to his mom's death. She's not sure if he's happy in general or just happy to be back but they aren't friends and so she can't ask.

Everything goes fine until four days before Christmas when mom asks “would you like to go visit your mother?” during dinner. Mom seems to understand her mistake the minute it happens, because Robb is suddenly agreeing to go with for support and Arya wants to go, too, and Rickon is older now but still too little to really know what's going on and he's bouncing in his seat and wanting to go on a trip.

Jon looks pale and mom quickly backtracks and says “we can figure it out later.”

After dinner, as they're all taking dishes into the kitchen, she sees dad give Jon's shoulder a squeeze like he's apologizing and Jon just nods and Sansa thinks that is that.

It's isn't just that, it turns out, because that night she can't sleep (she's a light sleeper and so she absolutely hears the creak on the third step from the top and she knows it must be Jon, he must have forgotten about the third step in the years he's been away because all the Starks know to avoid it if they're going down for a late night snack).

He doesn't come back up, she counts the minutes, and after a full half hour, as it's creeping towards midnight, she huffs out a breath and gets out of bed and puts on her slippers and robe and avoids the third step as she sneaks downstairs.

She finds him in the kitchen with her mom's keys in his hands. He's sitting at the kitchen counter and staring at them and when he notices her, he nearly drops them.

“Going somewhere?” she asks and he can't meet her eyes as he shrugs. She and Jon may not be friends, but she's certain he isn't a thief, she knows he's not planning on stealing their car, and if he just wanted to run out for something from the convenience store, he wouldn't look so guilty and it takes her a few moments to work it out.

“Do you remember how to get there?” she asks and he shakes his head.

“Not really, but there's GPS,” he looks down at his phone on the counter. “I just... I think I'm too afraid I'd crash your mom's car.”

She laughs at that and Jon's shoulders seem to relax a bit, a smile just barely tilting the corner of his mouth up. Her mom's car is nice, she knows, and even though Jon had basically lived here while his mom was in and out of the hospital, she knows he would never let himself take the Lexus out, or even dad's Rover. But the fact that he had taken the keys off the hook on the wall tells her how much he _wants_ to go and so she steps forward and takes them from his hand.

“I got my license last month,” she explains and walks over to the coat rack and puts on her winter coat and her hat and her gloves while Jon stammers behind her, but she doesn't listen to him. He wants to go but he'll never take the car himself and he won't ask to be taken. They aren't friends, but she _knows_ this, somehow.

The drive to the cemetery is surreal; being alone with Jon in her mom's Lexus as the clock ticks closer to midnight and Perry Como croons softly over the radio. They drive past elaborately lit houses and she thinks she'll never be able to separate Christmas and death again and then she reminds herself that this isn't _her_ loss and she has no real reason to be sad (she just _is_ ).

She drives up as close as she can get and angles the car as best she can so that Jon will have some light to see by and she sits in the car with the engine running and the radio still on as he gets out. He looks like some sort of spectre with his black coat and his black hair, highlighted in the headlights and she loses him when he moves out and crouches down near one of the graves.

She doesn't even realize that she falls asleep until he opens the door and a rush of cold air whips into the car and wakes her. He gets in and she doesn't ask if he's ok and she pretends she doesn't see his puffy eyes and she drives them back to the house.

They don't talk about it but she thinks Jon tells her mom, because the next day mom comes over and hugs her for no reason and whispers in her ear that she's a good person (she's not so sure about that, all she did was take the car without permission and fall asleep while Jon did whatever he needed to do. If she were a good person, she would have talked to him, asked him if he was ok, said all the right things. She would have done _more_ ).

Robb doesn't get mad like he did three years ago, but he's still upset when Jon has to go back to Dorne and she doesn't even care when they take the Christmas tree down earlier than usual that year.

* * *

_three_

The year she moves back after a disastrous term in the south and starts at Winterfell University is, of course, the year Robb decides to do a semester abroad in Volantis. He jokingly tells Jon to look after her for him, watch over her and be a stand in big brother while Robb is away.

Except Jon has never been like a brother to her, they have never been friends, and so she isn't totally surprised that they've ended up here, tangled up in his twin bed in his tiny off campus apartment. They're both quiet, both trying not to think about the Skype call that's waiting for them just two hours away.

They're worrying about different things, but really it's the same thing. They're going to tell Robb and that makes this, _them_ , real. It's barely been any time in the grand scheme of things, barely a month since that first night in mid-November when he'd finally kissed her and they'd stopped pretending that they were meeting up for coffee out of some sort of obligation to Robb. It's been no time at all and that's what she's worrying about as they lay here, her face buried in the crook of his neck and her legs entwined in his and his arms around her waist, keeping her in place so they don't roll off the bed that isn't big enough to fit two people.

It _should_ be too soon. She has a habit of falling into things too quickly and she _knows_ this but somehow, this thing with Jon feels nothing like what happened down in King's Landing. With Joffrey, she got caught up quickly but it also felt like she lost herself completely, like everything that made her _her_ got washed out until she was nothing but a beige outline of what a person should be. But with Jon it's different, she feels more like herself than she's ever felt before and she's not even sure how that's possible. She knows it's different, but will Robb? And once they tell Robb, the rest of the family will know and she's not sure if she wants to face the lectures about _moving too quickly_.

“What are you worried about?” she asks, her voice muffled against his throat. She's already told him her worries, but he hasn't told her his and she only feels him shrug in response. There's an irritation that flashes through her because they decided to do this because of _him_ , because Jon felt too guilty keeping it from Robb and this is all his idea. She pulls back slightly to look at his face and asks “do you even want to do this?”

“Of course?” he says it like it's a question, like he's confused why she's asking and she frowns down at him.

“You're clearly worried about something, if you don't want to tell him, we don't have to, but at least say it.”

“No, I just... I don't want to upset him.”

“You think he'll be mad at us?”

“Not at _us_ , at _me_ ,” he tries to make it a joke, forcing a smile. “He asked me to look out for you, keep assholes _away_ from you...”

“Well, one, I'm an adult and I think I've already proven I can get _myself_ away from shitty men if I need to. And two, I think it's obvious he wasn't including you in that. You're sure you want to do this?”

He only says “yeah” and she sighs and when he looks confused, she rolls her eyes at him.

“I'm not saying you have to tell me every thought in your head, but sometimes it's hard to know what you're thinking at all.”

He nods and doesn't look surprised by this and she wonders if other people have told him the same thing (and suddenly she worries that other _girls_ have told him the same thing and she wonders if she's being some sort of nag and then she tries to push that thought out of her head because it sounds exactly like Joffrey).

“I'll try,” he says slowly, “to be better at... words?”

She laughs and he gives her that crooked smile that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle up (the one that took her breath away the first time she saw him again at the little coffee cart in the quad after a week of texts back and forth about how they should meet up because Robb asked them to).

He relaxes after that but they go back to laying in silence and soon his smile slips and she can tell he's back to worrying about it and it isn't until later, when they're both dressed and sitting on the couch, as Jon preps his laptop for the call, that she thinks she understands what he's actually worried about.

At first she thought maybe he was just worried about losing Robb, that he thought Robb would suddenly decide to give up on nearly two decades of friendship because Jon wanted to date his little sister. But now she wonders if it's more than that, if Jon worries that if they ever break up, he'll lose Robb _and_ the Starks. She knows Jon is closer to her family than he is to his own and if they break up, she isn't sure what that means for the future. What happens during holidays and birthdays and eventual weddings and baby showers and everything else that Jon would be included in but might not be anymore if things went bad between them? She can't imagine that happening, but she also never imagined dating Jon to begin with (the thought had never even crossed her mind until that day in the quad).

She wonders how much Jon is risking by dating her – if he's risking his surrogate family for her and she thinks, not for the first time, that she must be a terribly selfish person because that makes her heart want to burst right out of her chest.

Skype pings and Robb's face appears on screen and she watches, in delayed time, as his eyes widen in excitement and he says “Sansa! I wasn't expecting both of you!”

“How's Volantis?” she asks and Robb grins, his face darker than she's ever seen it (the Starks don't _tan_ , but she guesses after nearly four months over there, it's finally starting to take).

There's a round of small talk but she can feel Jon's nerves and she decides not to drag it out.

“Hey Robb, if there was something someone wanted to tell you, you'd rather it happen sooner over Skype than later in person, right?”

She watches Robb's face fall as he says “is everything ok?”

(His eyes go to Jon and she wishes she had started this differently; she remembers the sickness that took Jon's mom, how it still hovers in all their minds and she really didn't think her wording through.)

“Everything's fine! We just have some news and we figured you'd rather know first and not when everyone else finds out next week. Jon and I are dating.”

She can count on one hand the number of times she's seen Robb look genuinely shocked, but he does now and Jon tenses next to her and when she looks over at him, she worries that he'll break his teeth with how hard his jaw is clenched.

After what feels like ages, Robb lets out a low whistle and leans back in his chair. “I gotta say, I did _not_ see that coming.”

“You aren't upset?” she asks tentatively, though he hadn't _sounded_ upset.

“Why would I be upset?” he asks. “I mean, I'm having trouble picturing it...”

“Gross, why are you trying to picture it?” she asks, scrunching her nose up and she hears Jon make a noise of protest deep in his throat and Robb lets out a string of _ew, why would you take it like that, you're the worst_ and some exaggerated gagging.

In the end, he isn't angry at all and she can feel Jon physically relax next to her and it's still a bit weird, this new dynamic, but she thinks it will all be ok in the end.

“Well,” Robb says after they've talked more about school and Volantis and some girl Robb has been hooking up with there, “if you two get married, I'm going to say I totally saw it coming and set you up on purpose and it wasn't an accident at all.”

“ _Married_?” she hears Jon whisper next to her and Robb must have heard it too because he lets out a full _cackle_ that sounds just a bit too much like Arya.

“Isn't this the part where you're supposed to tell Jon to not break my heart or you'll beat him up?” she asks, trying to let poor Jon off the hook.

“Nah, if anything I'd tell _you_ not to break _his_ heart. He's sensitive.”

“I'm not _sensitive,”_ Jon mutters but she's already nodding at Robb.

“He really is,” she agrees and ignores Jon's glare. “And a real romantic. Earlier he promised me he'd get better at _words_ for me.”

Jon groans as Robb laughs in delight and says “oh, Christmas break is gonna be _fun_.”

And it is, really.

The rest of her family takes it just as well as Robb had and Jon seems both relieved and confused, like he keeps expecting them to tell him that he's a horrible person who doesn't deserve to date her (when really, it's the other way around. But she's heard some things from Jon and Robb and Arya and she knows Jon's dad used to pit him against his step-siblings in everything from sports to grades to which college they attended and Jon's always second guessing himself and never thinking he's good enough and if she ever meets Rhaegar again, she's going to punch him in the face. Or have Arya do it, more likely. Arya would hit harder).

The night before Christmas Eve, she hears the third step creak and she doesn't hesitate to get up and go down (mom might be ok with them dating, but she has implemented a strict _separate rooms_ policy). She finds him in the kitchen with the keys to the Lexus in his hand and he turns and gives them to her like he knew she would follow and she drives them to the cemetery and this time he asks her to come with him to the grave.

She always wondered what Jon says to his mom when he comes here, but now she realizes he says nothing at all. He just sits and at one point his hand reaches out and he traces the name _Lyanna Snow_ with the tip of his finger and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from crying (because it's not _about_ her, she reminds herself).

“I never thanked you,” he says and even though it's quiet, it startles her. “For that night. I never thanked you.”

“I just drove you here,” she shrugs. Behind them, the lights to the Lexus are still on and it throws sharp shadows across the ground and she remembers back to that surreal night listening to Christmas carols and thinking too much about death.

“No, it was... I was never going to go on my own. You... you didn't let me _not go_ but you didn't push, either. If that makes any sense. I never thanked you.”

“I felt so useless,” she admits, leaning to press her face into his shoulder. The ground under them is cold and the tip of her nose feels numb but his shoulder is warm and solid. “I kept thinking I should know what to say but I didn't say anything at all.”

He laughs a little at that and says “I didn't need you to say anything, I just needed someone to be there and not make a big deal out of it. I never thanked you for that, either.”

“Well,” she sighs, turning her face so she's not talking into the fabric of his coat, “I promise to try and give you space when you need it if you promise to try and be better at words.”

“Deal.”

When they finally get up to leave, her legs are stiff and she turns the heater on full blast when they get back in the car and they spend a while driving around and looking at the lights in the neighborhood and picking out their favorite and she thinks this is what she wants Christmas to be. Maybe part of it will always be visiting a grave, but that's not _all_ it has to be and maybe it's not the terrible thing she used to think it was.

* * *

_four_

She isn't sure why he's so quiet but it's making her nervous. When she holds out her hand, the ring on her finger glints in the sun as Jon drives them to her parents house and she watches it sparkle for a while because the other alternative is pestering him until he finally talks. But they agreed, years ago, that she would give him space when he needed and he would tell her the things that were bothering him (even though they aren't always the best at it). And so she waits.

She knows its because of the phone call with his dad, he's been quiet and withdrawn ever since, but there's a part of her that can't help but think he's regretting everything. The proposal, the ring, _her_. It hasn't been so long, a little over a month since he did it (the absolute _sap_ remembered the exact date and time of their first kiss and she loves him so much it scares her sometimes). Except he's never given her a reason to think he regrets her; he may not be a poet but the things he _does_ say are so sincere that she _knows_ , even if the anxious part of her brain wants her to doubt.

The ring itself isn't much and she has to suppress a smile when she thinks back to the way he had apologized, had told her that when he had more money, he'd get her a _bigger_ ring ( _you had better not, Jon Snow, this is_ my _ring, don't you dare try to replace it_ ).

She can't wait to tell everyone. Well, Robb already knows because he helped Jon pick out the ring. And Arya and mom know because she has no self control and immediately called them. And she's pretty sure Jon told her dad. And Bran had texted her a _congrats_ the other day so she's pretty sure he knows somehow and if Bran knows, then Rickon knows. So basically everyone already knows because her family has no chill, but she's excited for this first Christmas as an engaged couple.

Or, she would be if Jon weren't in a mood that she can't figure out.

Robb brings his new girlfriend and it's finally one that she likes and Arya's boyfriend is there and so is Bran's boyfriend and Rickon doesn't have a significant other yet which she appreciates because in her brain he's still eight years old.

After dinner, they're all sat in the living room having the annual _is Gremlins even a Christmas movie_ fight when Jon slips out and she tries not to follow, really she does, but she can't help it and she leaves the rest of them arguing in front of the TV.

She hears Jon in the kitchen with her parents and she stops just outside the door and tries to listen in even though she knows it's dumb and childish, but she wants to know what Jon could possibly be telling her parents that he wouldn't tell _her._

“How'd you find out?” mom is saying, voice soft in a way she rarely hears it.

“Rhaegar was annoyed that I was coming here for Christmas again,” Jon's voice is low, too, trying not to be overheard. “He said something like _I should have just let them take you when they asked_.”

There's silence for a while and she almost feels like she can't breathe and then, in the kitchen, dad sighs.

“We did ask, but he said no and we had no legal right to you.”

“But why didn't you ever say anything?” Jon's voice is now a fierce whisper and she thinks she knows him well enough to hear how confused he is.

“Because you were already upset about leaving and he was still your _father_ and we didn't want to give you another reason to be angry. We wanted to give you the chance to have a relationship with him,” mom says and when she peeks around the door frame, she can see her mom's hand resting gently on Jon's shoulder as he leans against the counter.

“You let Robb think...” he starts and doesn't seem to know what to say. “Arya told me about the fights, you let Robb think you didn't want me so that _Rhaegar_ looked better?”

She watches Jon hang his head and mom and dad look upset and she can't just stand here doing nothing and so she walks into the kitchen and she doesn't know what to say but she thinks maybe this is one of those times where she shouldn't say anything at all. So instead she leans against the counter next to Jon and she takes his hand and when he squeezes back, she knows it was the right thing to do.

It takes Jon a moment to compose himself and mom tuts and makes him some tea and while she's not looking, dad adds a shot of whiskey to it, which makes Jon laugh.

When they're back in the living room, squeezed on the couch between Arya and Robb, Jon leans over and whispers _sorry I didn't tell you_ into her ear and she shakes her head and leans into him as Gremlins starts (it looks like Arya and Rickon won this year).

And later, after everyone has gone to bed, she drives him to the cemetery and he sits down and says “hey mom, I'm getting married” and this time she doesn't try to keep herself from crying because she thinks she finally realizes that she's not crying because she's _selfish_ , she's crying because she _cares_. For Jon, for his mom who died too young, for Robb and Arya losing their friend, for her parents who couldn't do anything but watch him get taken away, and even for Rhaegar, because he'll never understand how wonderful his son really is.

She is never going to be able to untangle _Jon_ from _Christmas_ and she knows she never wants to. And later, years from now, when they're ready, if they have kids, they can bring them here (maybe not at midnight, maybe at a more reasonable hour) and Jon can introduce them and maybe Christmas doesn't have to be about one thing only, because life isn't, right? It's not just about death, it's not just about late night visits to a cemetery, it's about all the time in between and the living. She thinks she understands that now.

When their limbs are numb, they go back to the car and she turns the heat on full blast and they drive around and pick out their favorite lights and then they go back home and they get into bed and try to sleep for a few hours until the house wakes for Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> you know I really tried to write something light and fun and Christmas-y but, well, here we are
> 
> happy holidays, everyone. Or, if you celebrate nothing, I hope your December is going... better than the rest of 2020?


End file.
